Chelsea Manning is running to unseat Right-wing, crypto-fascist, Russophobic Democrat Senator Ben Cardin in the Democratic Party’s upcoming Maryland primary. I hope she wipes the floor with him. If she doesn’t knock Cardin down to run as a Democrat, I hope she runs as an indie or third party candidate for the same office.

“In many ways, fears of Russian interference unfolded in Victorian Britain in a manner not unlike what we see today. As was the case in Wilde’s era, the specter of an external threat had a way of unmasking internal strife.”

That’s Jennifer Wilson in a brief essay with a focus on Wilde’s first play, Vera, at The Paris Review‘s blog.

Tomorrow NASA will be marking the 40th anniversary of the start of the two Voyager missions to the planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, the outer solar system, and the stars beyond. These two spacecraft, each carrying a message from humanity in the form of a golden record containing both speech and music, are now traveling through the realm of interstellar space.

Dick Gregory, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, and social justice activist, just left us.

Back in the 60s, before he played the character Grady on Sanford and Son, Gregory primarily did stand-up. He was part of a wave of iconoclastic African-American comedians who swept into the limelight–among them Flip Wilson, Godfrey Cambridge, Richard Pryor–somewhere in the space between Redd Foxx (crude, crass, brash and definitely dirty) and Bill Cosby (leaning towards cozy and ultimately way too clean). Gutsy and witty and politically incorrect before it became politically correct to be politcally incorrect, Gregory enjoyed the distinction of being both controversial and a hot property. He played Playboy Clubs and got his name on FBI watch lists. And even Carlin stole from him.

There is an empty space in the world of laughter and enlightenment on Earth now. But there’s one helluva ticket at the Pearly Gates Laughter Lounge–I like to imagine. With Pryor and Carlin and Robin Williams headlining, and Groucho as the MC.

"Poetry Fetter'd, Fetters the Human Race! Nations are Destroy'd, or Flourish, in proportion as Their Poetry Painting and Music, are Destroy'd or Flourish! The Primeval State of Man, was Wisdom, Art, and Science."--William Blake

"Society is like a stew. If you don't keep it stirred up you get a lot of scum on the top."--Edward Abbey

"I believe books will never disappear. It is impossible . . . . Of all mankind's diverse tools, undoubtedly the most astonishing are his books . . . . If books were to disappear, history would disappear. So would men."--Jorge Luis Borges

“Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else.”--Albert Einstein

"If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads."--Ralph Waldo Emerson

". . . surely the equation of bland nonpartisanship with objectivity--a silly notion fostered by the worst traditions of television news reporting--must be rejected. We may scrutinize a known critic more carefully, but ultimately we must judge his arguments, not his autobiography."
--Stephen Jay Gould

"Sit down and read. Educate yourself for the coming conflicts."--Mary Harris "Mother" Jones

"It was not intelligent to make an opposition between literature and science. It is no more legitimate than an opposition between literature and 'classics' or between
literature and history."--H. G. Wells

“It is a scientific truism that less data will always support more hypotheses.”--Robert L. Pitman

"He who is a slave against his will, will be able to become free. He who has become free by the favor of his master and has sold himself into slavery will no longer be able to be free."--The Gnostic Gospel of Philip

"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice."--Albert Einstein